


Under The Stars

by DesertScribe



Category: The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
Genre: Getting Together - Friendship to Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 09:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21116864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/pseuds/DesertScribe
Summary: Two times Bowler and Socrates slept out under the stars alone together, plus one time they didn't.





	Under The Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).

**1**

The second time Bowler and Socrates traveled alone together, Socrates packed what he hoped would enough extra supplies to ensure Bowler wouldn't feel the need to supplement their diet with rattlesnake meat again.

"It's not about weighing yourself down with extra supplies you probably won't need," Bowler said. "It's about not wasting opportunities when they present themselves. Besides," he added with a slightly irritated sounding huff, "cooking the same biscuits and beans and whatever, day in and day out, gets boring real fast. Cooking rattlesnake makes for a nice change after a while."

"How about you don't cook at all, and I do it instead?" Socrates suggested.

"Are you saying my cooking is bad, Poole?" Bowler said with a scowl.

"No! Of course not," Socrates spluttered. Luckily for him, Bowler's scowl dropped away to reveal a grin in its place.

"Oh, the look on your face right now! It makes me with I had a camera so I could take a picture and show it to Brisco later," Bowler laughed. Then, still smiling but somewhat more seriously, he added, "A change of pace would be nice, but I'm going to need some assurances before I let you anywhere near my food."

"Trust me, Bowler," Socrated said, "it won't be fancy, but I really do know how to cook." And it was true. He hadn't had much reason to practice it since he had taken on the well-paying job for the robber barons, but back in his childhood and his poor law student days, basic cooking skills of the variety that didn't require anything resembling an actual kitchen had been a necessity. Socrates figured that cooking over a campfire shouldn't be much different than cooking in a tenement fireplace. Keeping a lookout for wild animals that might want to pounce on him wouldn't be too different from keeping an eye out for Iphigenia, who from ages five to eleven had considered tacking her brother without warning to be the best possible entertainment, one of the many reasons why she called him Bunny.

"This isn't half bad," Bowler admitted later as they both sat with their backs to the campfire so they could enjoy their meal while watching the stars come out. Bowler sounded genuinely impressed, and Socrates felt a small stirring of pride, because he knew that Bowler was not the kind of man who was easily impressed. He briefly considered that maybe Bowler had only had low expectation of him but to most of Socrates's skills being more applicable back in civilization than out in the wilds, but he liked being to surprise Bowler with this area of competence anyway.

They ate together in companionable silence for a while longer. Then Bowler spoke again. "Are you sure you don't think this wouldn't be better with some rattlesnake in it?"

"Absolutely certain," Socrates said.

"If you say so," Bowler sighed. "You live to slither another day, snakey."

"Wait! What?" Socrates spluttered, but Bowler's only answer was to dart out a hand sideways to grab a long stick from the pile of wood they had collected to keep their fire going through the night. He swung the stick around, jabbed its forked end into the darkness just beyond their feet and the small ring of firelight, and quickly swept it further forward and upward. Bowler kept hold of the stick, but Socrates heard _something_ land in the bushes a half dozen yards away, and that something was alive if the continued rustling sounds which gradually faded into the distance were any indication. "Was that a rattlesnake you just threw away?" Socrates asked in a voice which was decidedly not a shriek only because Socrates was trying very hard not to shriek at Bowler. It was, however, more than an octave higher than usual. All things considered, Socrates was willing to count it as a win as long as the rattlesnake did not decide to turn around and come after them in revenge.

"Don't tell me you changed your mind about wanting it after all," Bowler warned. "Because if that's the case, you can go looking for it yourself."

"No! No," Socrates said again, trying to sound a little more calm this time. "I'm just surprised there was a rattlesnake right near our feet and I didn't see it. I'm also surprised you didn't just shoot it like last time."

"Last time, you got all upset about it."

"Oh," Socrates said. Then Bowler's words had a moment to really sink in. "Oh," Socrates repeated. "Thank you, Bowler."

"Don't mention it, Poole," Bowler replied. Then, with a laugh, he added, "It also might be in your best interest if you never mention to Brisco that you know how to cook any better than the usual biscuits and beans, or he'll try to make you do it every time he has you out on the trail, just so he won't have to."

"I'll keep that in mind," Socrates said.

Bowler turned around in his seat and used his snake-flinging stick to poke at the fire, and the two men lapsed back into a companionable silence again for the rest of their meal. Bowler raised a quizzical eyebrow as he watched Socrates's pre-bedtime routines (which were simplified due to there being no mattress to try to press his trousers between as he slept, but still involved stretches, tooth-brushing, and gargling), but he withheld comment on the matter. The night wasn't too hot or too cool, and as Socrates drifted off to sleep in his bedroll, he realized that he had never felt so safe sleeping out under an open sky.

The next morning, Bowler complained about Socrates's snoring as they shared breakfast cooking duties, but Socrates made sure to give as good as he got in that regard, because Bowler was no silent sleeper either. It was all in good fun, though, and Socrates could feel the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth even as he could see the same happening to Bowler. It was a happy, relaxing, and blissfully rattlesnake-free morning, and then they got their horses saddled up and got back on the trail again without incident.

* * *

**2**

They had left San Francisco before dawn and then ridden for most of the day. The city was far behind them, and this was not a conversation that Socrates expected to be having.

"I'll be fine on my own, Bowler. Really, you don't need to stay with me," Socrates complained, "so you can keep going to wherever you were on your way to."

"I wasn't on my way anywhere but here. Somebody has to watch out for you, Poole," Bowler retorted. There wasn't any derision in his voice like there once would have been, but Bowler sounded emphatic in his belief all the same.

It was funny how much things could change. A year ago, Socrates wouldn't have dreamed of wanting to go off into the wilderness on his own for fun, and Lord Bowler certainly would not have been arguing to accompany him. Now, Socrates had been out in the field often enough while working with Brisco and Bowler that he no longer felt a sense of dread at leaving civilization behind, and he and Bowler had discovered that they could travel together quite peaceably once they learned to accept each other's foibles. However, it was still something of a surprise that Bowler would want to go anywhere with Socrates in a non-professional capacity just for fun.

"I can make camp by myself now," Socrates insisted. "And there haven't been any reports of any dangerous fugitives or bears in the area for ages. I'm just fly fishing!"

"You ever been fly fishing before?" Bowler asked.

"No," Socrates said, "but I've read several books on the subject, and they all made it sound like a very relaxing activity with little or no danger."

Bowler raised a skeptical eyebrow. "So none of those books mentioned how hard it is for a man to get a fish hook out of his own scalp after catching himself in the back of the head with a bad cast?" he said.

That brought Socrates up short. "Um, no," he said with no small amount of horror, "none of the books mentioned that."

"Like I said, Poole, somebody needs to watch out for you."

Socrates saw no reason to argue any further. That's how Bowler ended up sitting in the shade of a tree, paging through furniture catalogues to try to find the perfect new display cabinet for his ever expanding collection of cut crystal while Socrates stood on the bank of the rocky stream and tried to put his book learning into practice. In the end, he managed to avoid getting any fishhooks stuck in his scalp or any other part of his body, but he did not manage to get the hooks stuck in any fish's mouth either. Eventually, he gave up his attempts at fishing for the day and waded out into a spot where the rocks grew more sparsely distributed and the stream deepened into a pleasant little swimming hole before narrowing back down to continue its winding path between the California hills.

"C'mon in, Bowler, the water's fine," Socrates called, because the day was warm enough that even in the shade Bowler had to be sweating by now.

"Never did get around to learning how to swim since the last time I told you I couldn't," Bowler called back.

"I could teach you now," Socrates offered. "My sister wasn't the only one in the family who spent time working as a lifeguard." And to his surprise, Bowler got up, stripped down to his underclothes, and tentatively joined him in the water without any further questions or threats of coming back as a ghost to haunt Socrates if he drowned. "Okay, now lean back into my arms, and I won't let you sink," he began, and the lesson progressed from there.

Bowler was not an instant champion swimmer after a single lesson. He probably never would be. But he was on his way to learning the basics enough for both of them to be more confident that he was not about to sink and drown without assistance anymore. That was enough to let Socrates feel a sense of accomplishment.

He had felt something else as well while he had held Bowler there in the water. He had noticed on plenty of past occasions that Lord Bowler was a handsome and well-built man (how could he not?), but he had never had reason to be so _tactile_ with him for such an extended period of time with no other distractions, and that brought all of Socrates's previous observations into much sharper focus in ways that he could not ignore now that he had started thinking about them. However, he thought he should probably keep that information to himself.

He would have managed to stick to that resolve if the changeable mountain weather had not caused the temperature to start dropping unexpectedly low in the middle of the night.

Socrates did his best to suffer through the cold, until he heard Bowler Bowler get up from where he had been sleeping. A sudden warmth enveloped Socrates from behind.

"I could hear your teeth chattering from the other side of the fire," Bowler said sleepily in his ear while wrapping himself and his blanket more tightly around Socrates's back. Socrates was not a small man by any stretch of the imagination, but Bowler's extra height let Socrates nestle up against him as if he were. It felt heavenly, and not just because of the relief from the cold.

"Mmm, this is nice," Socrates sighed before he could think to stop himself. He tensed as soon as he realized what he had said.

Bowler's only response was to hold him tighter yet and mutter, "Yeah, a man could get used to this." He sounded half asleep and gave a jaw-cracking yawn as if to emphasize that point. "We'll just have to find another excuse…," he trailed off. Then he began snoring in Socrates's ear.

Even with the noise, Socrates fell asleep with a smile on his face.

* * *

**3**

It was the end to yet another successful case in which Brisco and Bowler had dragged Socrates along for the ride, something which Socrates was learning to enjoy a lot more these days, and this time they had managed to wrap things up with any gunfire at all, so even if Brisco, Bowler, and Comet all grumbled about things being anticlimactic, Soc considered it to be a double win in his books. They were waiting for their celebratory dinner to arrive when the hotel's desk clerk sidled up to their table with a look on his face which suggested he was the unhappy bearer of bad news.

"I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen," the man said quietly, "but there has been a matter of a small fire in a room adjacent to one of the three reserved for you. It's already been put out," he hurried to assure them before any of them had a chance to exclaim 'A fire?!?' or anything similarly bad for business. "Unfortunately," he continued, "the wall between the rooms has become something more akin to a window, and the room is, let's just say, less than habitable at the moment. Dinner is on the house for all three of you to compensate for the inconvenience of one of you needing to double up with another or seek alternate accommodations. If you have any further questions, please feel free to talk to the manager about it." And then he hurried away before any of them could get a word in edgewise.

"Is it my imagination," Socrates mused as he watched the man depart, "or do we run into problems with there not being enough beds a statistically improbable amount of times when we travel together?"

"If it's your imagination, then it's my imagination too," Bowler said. "What I'm not imagining is how I'm going to be sure to order seconds without having to worry about complaints about my expense report later, because I'm going to make that a reality."

"Improbable or not," Brisco said, "we're going to have to work out who's going to be sleeping alone and who isn't, and I for one don't want to have to deal with the usual arguments right before going to bed, so let's get this out of the way now."

"And how do you propose that?" Bowler asked. He sounded much less combative than he would have half a year ago.

"I propose we leave it entirely up to chance this time," Brisco said. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a deck of cards, which he made a show of thoroughly shuffling before setting them face down on the table and spreading them out in a wide arc. "We each draw a card, and whoever picks the highest one sleeps alone."

"That seems reasonable," Socrates said after a quick glance at Bowler out of the corner of his eye.

"Guess it's as fair as we can get," Bowler agreed. He reached out and picked a card at random, which turned out to be the jack of diamonds. "Speaking of statistics, County, I'm no mathematician, but I know that's going to be hard to beat."

Brisco shrugged and didn't try to argue the point. "Now you, Soc," he said, gesturing to the cards still on the table.

Socrates picked a card and turned it face up on the table to reveal a nine of clubs. He glanced at Bowler again, but the man was maintaining the kind of unreadable poker face which he rarely managed during actual games of poker.

"Sorry, Soc," Brisco said. "It looks like either Bowler is sleeping alone or I am, but you definitely aren't." He closed his eyes and made a show of waving his hand around above the cards as if that somehow randomized his choice more. "And now the moment of truth," he announced as he reached down and, eyes still closed, drew a card. He didn't open his eyes to look at the card until he had already set it down on top of the other two. "Queen of spades! Sorry, guys, but better luck next time," he said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I'll think fondly of both of you as I drift peacefully off to sleep tonight without anyone snoring in my ear." He flipped the three cards back over and gathered the whole deck back into a neat stack with a sweep of his hand.

As Brisco bent to put the cards away in the saddlebags hanging off the back of his chair, Bowler and Socrates shot each other triumphant grins, which they both schooled back into looks more befitting those who had lost out before Brisco turned his attention back to them.

Later, after they had all finished their dinners and Brisco had claimed his room key from the still-apologetic clerk and strutted off triumphantly to his hotel room, Bowler turned to Socrates and said, "I can't decide if he thinks he played us and we won without him realizing it or if he knew exactly what he was doing and definitely played us but in a good way."

"It was definitely one of those two," Soc said. "I'm hoping it was the latter, because if it was the former then that means he thinks neither of us can recognize his favorite deck of marked cards after all the times we've watched him cheat at poker."

"Let's go with it being the latter then," Bowler agreed. "Either way, I look forward to getting to share a hotel room with you without needing to find an excuse for why it's necessary we do so without also sharing it with Brisco."

Neither of them had to worry about the other snoring at them, because they had much more enjoyable ways to keep each other awake all night.

If Brisco or Comet noticed them both falling asleep almost as soon as they got on the train the next morning, they kept it to themselves.

**The End**


End file.
